The Decreased In The BPS Version Of Poverty Rate Should Be Evacuated

Two residents passed through the densely populated house area of Kebon Melati, Jakarta, Thursday (23/6/2022). (ANTARA/Rivan Awal Lingga/wsj)

JAKARTA The poverty rate recently released by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) is considered invalid, because it uses the old method. In fact, in the field, the poverty rate in Indonesia is far more than the data issued by BPS.

President Prabowo Subianto claims to have received a leak from BPS that the absolute unemployment and poverty rate in Indonesia has decreased.

He made this statement at the closing ceremony of the PSI Congress in Solo last week. At that time, BPS had not officially released data to the public, aka it was postponed. Previously, BPS scheduled to release poverty on Tuesday (15/7).

BPS finally released the latest data, revealing that the poverty rate fell to 23.85 million people as of March 2025, on Friday, July 25. According to BPS Social Statistics Deputy Ateng Hartono, the poverty rate decreased to 210 thousand people. In September 2024 the number of poor people in Indonesia was 24.96 million people.

Currently, the poor are equivalent to 8.47 percent of the total population in Indonesia. This percentage decreased by 0.1 percent compared to last September. However, many doubt the truth of the release of the BPS poverty rate which was declared decreasing.

The poverty line applied by BPS is in the spotlight. In March 2025, BPS set a poverty line of IDR 609,160 per per capita per month, or around IDR 20,305 per day.

This means that people with income above Rp. 20,305 per day are not considered as poor people. This figure is higher than the previous poverty line of Rp. 18,348 per day.

This BPS poor standard is apparently different from the World Bank, which calculates the poverty line based on purchasing power parity (PPP). According to the World Bank, the extreme poverty line is US $ 2.15 or IDR 32,454 per day.

Executive Director of the Center of Economic and Law Studies Bhima Yudhistira believes, in the field, the number of poor people is far more than the poverty rate claimed by the government.

"So far, there is a striking gap between official poverty data belonging to the Indonesian government and data released by international institutions," Bhima told VOI.

Based on the latest report by the World Bank, around 68.2 percent or the equivalent of 194.4 million Indonesians live below the international poverty line.

According to Bhima, this figure is very different from the data released by BPS, which only records that Indonesia's poor population is only 8.57 percent or 24.06 million people.

"Although the methodology of the two is different, this 8-fold disparity shows there is a problem in the way we define poverty," he said.

According to Bhima, BPS has used a nearly five-decade approach to measures of spending-based poverty and items that have not changed much and are not in accordance with economic reality.

The difference in poverty schemes according to BPS and World Bank is more than just numbers. Bhima claims, this is a fundamental problem because poverty data can have an impact on government policy making.

He gave an example of the government's claims regarding the success of social protection, agricultural programs, free nutritious food to downstreaming which is considered not entirely reflected in BPS data.

"The poverty rate during the use of the long poverty line method will not answer the reality on the ground. So if BPS still removes the poverty rate without the revision of the poverty line, the data is less valid," said Bhima asserted.

Executive Director of the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (INDEF) Esther Sri Astuti also wondered about the reduction in the BPS version of poverty.

"I'm curious about reducing (the poverty rate). However, if it decreases, maybe the poverty measurement method needs to be updated because the poverty line is still using the old poverty line," said Esther.

According to Esther, the poverty line of IDR 609,160 per capita per month is too low because the procurement is too far away from the minimum wage in each province (UMP).

For information, the highest UMP is Jakarta with a value of Rp. 5.3 million, while the lowest is in Central Java with Rp. 2.16 million. He continued, the determination of the poverty line should be measured from the decent cost of living and Rp. 20,000 per day considered too small.

On the other hand, if the poverty rate really decreases, he suspects it will be driven by government social assistance programs, ranging from Wage Subsidy Assistance (BSU), Family Hope Program (PKH), and so on.